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Are LiveO2 Systems Safe to Use?

Oxy­gen use is com­plete­ly safe with LiveO2® and Oxy­gen Mul­ti­step Pro­to­cols. A more detailed dis­cus­sion of each top­ic fol­lows. There are three sit­u­a­tions where oxy­gen is not safe to breathe:  Oth­er­wise oxy­gen is help­ful accord­ing to orig­i­nal research includ­ed in this pub­li­ca­tion. Both Oxy­gen Mul­ti­step Ther­a­py and LiveO2 are well with­in safe lev­els, and are even safer than com­mon­ly used hyper­bar­ic cham­bers. We’ll explain more on this lat­er with a short list of exceptions: 
  1. Man­i­fest or pro­nounced hyper­to­nia (stage III/IV WHO) [Extreme stiff­ness due to neu­ro­mus­cu­lar locking];
  2. with signs of car­diac decom­pen­sa­tion [By car­diac decom­pen­sa­tion is meant a com­bi­na­tion of symp­toms and signs that indi­cate that the heart by rea­son of its abnor­mal con­di­tion no longer is able to main­tain an effi­cient cir­cu­la­tion. In car­diac decom­pen­sa­tion is not includ­ed the cir­cu­la­to­ry fail­ure of acute infec­tious diseases.]
  3. with steno car­dia syn­drome at rest [severe con­strict­ing pain or sen­sa­tion of pres­sure in the chest, often radi­at­ing from the pre­cordi­um to a shoul­der (usu­al­ly left) and down the arm, result­ing from ischemia of the heart mus­cle usu­al­ly caused by coro­nary dis­ease.]
  4. and to some extent with febrile infec­tions. [infec­tions with a high fever]
Our search­es show­ing no cas­es of neg­a­tive or adverse effects from oxy­gen  oxy­gen ther­a­pies in over 30 years of con­tin­u­ous use.

Oxidative Stress

The LiveO2 and LiveO2 Adap­tive Con­trast® equip­ment is not capa­ble of deliv­er­ing enough oxy­gen for long enough to dam­age lungs or cause oxy­gen tox­i­c­i­ty. There are two doc­u­ment­ed sit­u­a­tions where low pres­sure oxy­gen can cause harm: 
  • Lor­raine Smith Effect — Result­ing from oxida­tive stress to lung tis­sues exceed­ing 95% for four hours
  • Paul Bert Effect — Oxy­gen Tox­i­c­i­ty — with high pres­sure caus­es See: Oxy­gen Tox­i­c­i­ty in Man
At nor­mal pres­sure, the med­ical­ly accept­ed thresh­old for oxida­tive stress to the lungs requires oxy­gen in excess of 95% exceed­ing 4 hours in the most sen­si­tive indi­vid­u­als, with symp­toms typ­i­cal­ly appear­ing after 14 hours. See: Bench to Bed­side Review: Oxy­gen as a Drug LiveO2 is capa­ble of high lev­els 50 liters per minute for about fif­teen min­utes. This use is far below both thresh­olds for oxida­tive stress: 
  • The con­cen­tra­tion of oxy­gen is at about 80%
  • The dura­tion is oxy­gen use is for fif­teen min­utes max­i­mum until con­sump­tion exhausts the reser­voir, and use must stop.
All sys­tems, includ­ing LiveO2, can only deliv­er oxy­gen well with­in known safe lev­els, of both time and dura­tion.

Oxygen Toxicity

In 1947, the British mil­i­tary dis­cov­ered that oxy­gen could be tox­ic (Oxy­gen Tox­i­c­i­ty) as a result of under­wa­ter research. The same research dis­cov­ered that nitro­gen (78% of air) caused Nitro­gen Nar­co­sis. In sim­ple terms, oxy­gen tox­i­c­i­ty only occurs under very, very, ele­vat­ed oxy­gen par­tial pressures.  This research deter­mined that super-con­cen­trat­ed oxy­gen, 18x nor­mal (impos­si­ble with­out mil­i­tary-grade equip­ment or deep div­ing), pro­duces oxy­gen poisoning. 
  • Ardenne’s pro­to­cols use oxy­gen at far less than these lev­els, and have nev­er been report­ed to cause harm or pro­duce oxy­gen tox­i­c­i­ty symp­toms, in any person.
  • Ath­let­ic pro­to­cols have over a 75% safe­ty mar­gin, and non-ath­let­ic pro­to­cols have a 95% safe­ty mar­gin. A detailed analy­sis follows.
Accord­ing to the research doc­u­men­ta­tion, oxy­gen tox­i­c­i­ty effects can­not occur with Oxy­gen Mul­ti­step Ther­a­py or LiveO2 sys­tems because they can­not pro­duce high enough lev­els of oxy­gen for a long enough peri­od of time to pro­duce these effects. The Sum­ma­ry If you want to skip the details, the results below come to 17.9 atmos­pheres, or breath­ing air under water at a depth of 538 feet. This is very extreme. For com­par­i­son, Ardenne’s preg­nan­cy sup­port pro­to­col uses about 4 atmos­pheres of oxy­gen for 15 min­utes dur­ing labor pre­ced­ing child­birth. This is about 125 feet of water breath­ing reg­u­lar air, for a short peri­od of time. His quick pro­to­cols use about 60% oxy­gen for 15 min­utes. The LiveO2 sys­tem sup­ports Ardenne’s high­est lev­el pro­to­cols for ath­let­ic train­ing and labor. The high­est oxy­gen lev­els that any Oxy­gen Mul­ti­Step Ther­a­py sys­tem is capa­ble of, is less than 25% of the oxy­gen par­tial pres­sures known or ever report­ed to pro­duce oxy­gen tox­i­c­i­ty effects in any per­son. There are no reports, over the past 30 years, that any of Ardenne’s pro­to­cols have ever caused any indi­ca­tion of oxy­gen tox­i­c­i­ty in any per­son. Cal­cu­la­tions Oxy­gen at sea lev­el is one atmos­phere. The exper­i­ments doc­u­ment­ed in these pub­li­ca­tions showed oxy­gen tox­i­c­i­ty at 17.9 atmos­pheres pro­duced esca­lat­ing symp­toms, as indi­cat­ed below 
  • The pres­sure at 90 feet = (1 atm + * (.445 lb/ft * 90 ft) / 14.5)) = 3.76 atm
  • This was pure oxy­gen. Nor­mal air is 21% oxy­gen, so 100% / 21% pure oxy­gen is 4.76 atmos­pheres of oxy­gen par­tial pres­sure 3.76 atm * 4.76 atm = 17.9 atmos­pheres of oxygen
  • So this data shows results for extreme­ly high oxy­gen con­cen­tra­tions. Note that even at these extreme­ly ele­vat­ed lev­els, the ear­ly pre­sen­ta­tions, less than 15 min­utes, have minor symptoms: 
    • Lip Twitch­ing
    • Tin­gling of Skin
    • Ver­ti­go
    • Hic­cup
    • Nau­sea

Acute COPD

It is well known that oxy­gen should nev­er be used, alone, by any per­son with Chron­ic Obstruc­tive Pul­monary Dis­ease. See also Effect of Oxy­gen on obstruc­tive pul­monary dis­ease. No per­son with com­pro­mised res­pi­ra­tion (COPD and relat­ed syn­dromes) should: 
  • Use a Hyper­bar­ic Cham­ber with­out med­ical supervision
  • Breathe a high con­cen­tra­tion oxy­gen with­out exer­cise. Exer­tion caus­es the mus­cles to pro­duce CO2 by aer­o­bic metab­o­lism stim­u­lat­ing nor­mal res­pi­ra­tion that main­tains the O2/CO2 bal­ance. Indi­vid­u­als with very low CO2 pro­duc­tion have sup­pressed res­pi­ra­tion due to low CO2 pro­duc­tion which may lead to res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­tress or failure.
The com­bi­na­tion of oxy­gen with exer­tion tends to be help­ful for indi­vid­u­als with com­pro­mised res­pi­ra­tion, Ardenne — Oxy­gen Mul­ti­step Ther­a­py, P 52 – 73. Ardenne devel­oped sev­er­al high­ly suc­cess­ful pro­to­cols that use sup­ple­men­tal oxy­gen, com­bined and exer­cise or phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal­ly ele­vat­ed heart and res­pi­ra­to­ry rates, to restore res­pi­ra­to­ry func­tion in these same indi­vid­u­als.
Oxy­gen Poi­son­ing at 90 ft (27 m) in the Dry in 36 Sub­jects in Order of Per­for­mance – K W Don­ald1
Expo­sure (mins.) Num. of Subjects Symp­toms
96 1 Pro­longed daz­zle; severe spas­mod­ic vomiting
60 – 69 3 Severe lip-twitch­ing; Eupho­ria; Nau­sea and ver­ti­go; arm twitch
50 – 55 4 Severe lip-twitch­ing; Daz­zle; Blub­ber­ing of lips; fell asleep; Dazed
31 – 35 4 Nau­sea, ver­ti­go, lip-twitch­ing; Convulsed
21 – 30 6 Con­vulsed; Drowsi­ness; Severe lip-twitch­ing; epi­gas­tric aura; twitch L arm; amnesia
16 – 20 8 Con­vulsed; Ver­ti­go and severe lip twitch­ing; epi­gas­tric aura; spas­mod­ic respiration;
11 – 15 4 Inspi­ra­to­ry pre­dom­i­nance; lip-twitch­ing and syn­cope; Nau­sea and confusion
6 – 10 6 Dazed and lip-twitch­ing; paraes­the­si­ae; ver­ti­go; “Diaphrag­mat­ic spasm”; Severe nausea
These pro­to­cols are list­ed here: 
  • 36 hour Cure (ambu­la­to­ry individuals)
  • Res­pi­ra­to­ry Dis­tress (Coma, bed­fast) NO HIGH CONCENTRATION OXYGEN SYSTEM SHOULD BE USED with­out exer­cise because exer­cise pro­duces Car­bon Diox­ide to bal­ance the metabolism.
Indi­vid­u­als with extreme­ly com­pro­mised res­pi­ra­to­ry sys­tems should not use a hyper­bar­ic cham­ber with­out med­ical super­vi­sion, as ele­vat­ed oxy­gen pres­sure can inhib­it res­pi­ra­tion. These same indi­vid­u­als CAN use LiveO2 or Oxy­gen Mul­ti­step Ther­a­py because these ther­a­pies include activ­i­ty that pre­serves and enhances CO2/Oxygen bal­ance, to sup­port and restore res­pi­ra­to­ry reflex­es.

Oxygen Partial Pressure Safety

Both the low and high oxy­gen lev­els are well with­in accept­ed safe ranges and have been in pub­lic use since 1949, 1965, and mil­i­tary use since World War 2.

Oxygen Rich Mixture

LiveO2 uses res­pi­ra­to­ry oxy­gen lev­els rang­ing from about 45% to 85% under ambi­ent pres­sure. This lev­el is with­in well-estab­lished safe­ty lim­its estab­lished over 50 years of recre­ation­al div­ing. LiveO2 sim­u­lates breath­ing a NITROX mix­ture at a depth of 60 feet, or a foot­ball play­er breath­ing oxy­gen on the bench after an exhaus­tive play. The LiveO2 oxy­gen-rich mix­ture mir­rors NFL best prac­tice to pro­vide play­ers with an oxy­gen mix­ture at the bench when return­ing from play. This prac­tice pro­vides a mar­gin of safe­ty and enables play­ers to expe­dite recov­ery from high-exer­tion plays and return to the game more quick­ly. Oxy­gen tox­i­c­i­ty only occurs at an oxy­gen par­tial pres­sure of 140% which is impos­si­ble under nor­mal atmos­pher­ic con­di­tions.

Oxygen Reduced Mixture

The low oxy­gen mix­ture sim­u­lates the oxy­gen par­tial pres­sure about the same as dur­ing com­mer­cial air trav­el. This air mix­ture has a his­to­ry dat­ing back to about 1949.

Barotrauma

Baro­trau­ma is an injury from a pres­sure change. It occurs when exter­nal pres­sure changes faster than the body can adapt. LiveO2 oper­ates only under nor­mo­bar­ic con­di­tions. Baro­trau­ma can­not occur. 
Updated on February 15, 2023

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